


no flame now

by CaffeineChic



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Halloween Prompts, M/M, Maggot Husbands, No happy ending here, mentions of hell and related activities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27507985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeineChic/pseuds/CaffeineChic
Summary: Their shadows brushed together. Ghosts of the dark merging on the ground, elongating in the rising dawn, one reaching for the other. Ligur shuffled closer. They never touched. Never spoke of touching. They just were.
Relationships: Hastur/Ligur (Good Omens)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 29
Collections: Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween





	no flame now

**Author's Note:**

> thanks a billion to [Anti_Kate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate) for the beta. what a gem.
> 
> this is many moons late to [racket's](racketghost.tumblr.com) 13 Day's Of Halloween prompts and i have shoved 4 of them in here - ghost, haunt, bone and ~~bon~~ fire.
> 
> first time go at maggot husbands.

Monstrous beings by choice. Hastur hadn't fallen, he had stormed and raged and thrown himself out - followed the burning spectacle of Lucifer and Beelzebub, screamed with the agony of his choice as his Grace had burned away. And he had _loved_ it. He hadn't felt empty, bereft - none of those things some newly-formed demons had once they'd stopped weeping, fuck - the _weeping._ He had burned and he had loved it.

He'd pulled himself to the edge of the sulphur pit, wings heavy with char. A hand had reached out to pull him up, he'd slapped it away and fallen back in. He'd sworn and flailed and tried again, and the hands had reached and dragged him out.

He'd lain on his back with his feet still hovering above the pit, feeling the heat, the burn. Basking.

Hastur had turned his head and the shape that would become Ligur hunched down next to him. The walls echoed with wailing, regret. But not from them. Hastur flopped over, pushed himself to sitting.

"Wasn't so bad." Ligur's voice was sure.

They stood, folded away their wings.

(never to be unfolded again.

they were from Her.

they didn't want them.)

He turned to Ligur, drawn to the stillness of him. "What now?"

And so it had been. The two of them. They didn't rise through the ranks, Ligur had found Beelzebub and nodded, once. They'd looked at Hastur over Ligur's shoulder and he had pushed a passing demon back into a flaming pit. Laughed at the screams.

And that had been that.

Dukes.

Hastur didn't trust Ligur. But he didn't trust him less than he didn't trust the others. Dependable. He was dependably untrustworthy. Tricked him into most of the topside work, but kept cigarettes where Hastur could find them. Stole the good temptations, but at regular intervals.

Kept the really good temptations for them both.

There was an artistry to it. Find a soul that could be breached, the membrane thin and passable - and breathe the rot right in. Watch it dissolve the will, watch the doubt spread and fester. It took time, for things to decay, to degrade, to spoil beyond salvage.

There was time to watch. To stand back and admire the work, something that could be beautiful turning putrid and foul. Mastery.

Hastur liked the good temptations. Liked to take his time with it.

(Ligur liked to watch.

Hastur liked that too.)

So.

They were a partnership. They lurked, and waited, and blighted the soil of human life. Always on the edge of it, the outskirts. Picking them off one by one.

Their shadows brushed together. Ghosts of the dark merging on the ground, elongating in the rising dawn, one reaching for the other. Ligur shuffled closer. They never touched. Never spoke of touching. They just were.

Together.

But, not in a way that could be seen, could be questioned.

Couldn't be seen to have something, someone in Hell.

(things got taken, broken.

some _ones_ , too.)

But that was then.

And this was now.

"This is torture." Hastur spat the words, disgusted, angry. (and something else - that he didn't understand enough to voice.)

"It's Hell." Ligur's voice rumbled in his ears, gruff and brooking no argument. It was fact. "What did you expect? Be a funny old world if there wasn't torture in Hell."

Ligur skulked beside him. Close. Too close. Not close enough.

"Stop that."

(stop that. stop _this_.

stop _not_ being here.

stop.)

Hastur crowded into a corner, the walls wet, damp. Awful. It was awful. It had always been awful. But he had never been alone in it before. Now there was room for misery to flood the space that Ligur no longer occupied.

The Ligur he could see now, could hear now, wasn't real. He knew that, part of him knew that. But he was still there. Still part of a subconscious he hadn't known existed until it had manifested in the dark, standing over him, waiting, when he had closed his eyes for just a moment.

(no one slept in Hell.

not alone.

who would be so stupid, to let their guard down, without someone else to keep watch.

but who could you trust?

no one.

not even. a partner.

who you wouldn't dare to call a partner.

some _ones_ got taken.)

"Why'd he put everything back 'cept for you?" Hastur kept his back to this figment, this Ligur-shaped torment.

"Nothing left of me to put back. Crawly saw to that."

"Crawly." Vitriol laced his tongue. "Should tear him limb from limb."

"Won't work. Untouchable. You go after him, or his Angel - won't be anything left of you."

"Nothing left of me now. Not without - " He clawed at the wall, the mould and moss taking root under his nails, dirt and filth in the beds. "You're not really here."

"No. Gone. Won't be back."

"Why'd everyone else get what they wanted?"

"They got what they deserved. Load of shit, really. You got what you got - nothing."

(he had burned and he had rejoiced in it.

his skin was sodden, his bones were soaked.

no flame now.

nothing to rejoice in.)

The water dripped and dripped and dripped. Drop after drop after drop.

His shadow sat alone.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! always open to comments or chats here, or [on tumblr](caffeinechic.tumblr.com), or on discord if you're about


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